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I personally pin SEO gaming as the #1 cause of decline in the quality of the Internet. I only use Google at this point as a rapid link to websites so I don't ha

I personally pin SEO gaming as the #1 cause of decline in the quality of the Internet. I only use Google at this point as a rapid link to websites so I don't have to type the URL. SEO posts just trash any meaningful search and Google seems content. LLMs are great for cutting through this, as long as you take time to verify your data.

firtoz 3y ago
A few times I have googled a company name directly and the first few results were SEO snipes.
contravariant 3y ago
Though you'd think something like page-rank would not be attracted to some random pages that are only linked to from the same domain.
soperj 3y ago
#1 cause in the decline of Google maybe. https://search.marginalia.nu/ https://search.marginalia.nu/ seems to manage though, so maybe Google just doesn't care.
- marginalia_nu 3y ago
  It's mostly due to incentives. The most effective way to go after search engine spam is to aim for what the search engine spammers are after, which is mostly ad impressions. If you get rid of the ads, you get rid of the search engine spam. Of course, that would be directly hitting Google's bottom line, and is never going to happen[1] The other factor is of course that they are very big, and get directly targeted in a way I'm not. [1] http://infolab.stanford.edu/~backrub/google.html#a http://infolab.stanford.edu/~backrub/google.html#a
tensor 3y ago
To be fair, this is probably more Google not caring rather than any improvement in SEO gaming. Kagi doesn't suffer from the SEO spam like Google does, and if a small company can do it surely Google could if they wanted to.
- 10000truths 3y ago
  Kagi can do it because of the fact that they're a small company, not despite it.
  - tensor 3y ago
    I doubt it has anything to do with company size. Most likely it's due to what drives their products. In the case of Google, overall it's how many ads they sell, and if improving search quality doesn't lead to more ads, then there is little incentive to do it. For Kagi, they get revenue from customers paying for quality, so there is direct incentive to produce high quality search results.
    - leereeves 3y ago
      Kagi isn't a target for SEO tactics. If they became as popular as Google, SEO manipulators would find ways to improve their position on Kagi.
nostromo 3y ago
Stop blaming SEO and start blaming Google. Ultimately they're responsible for creating the incentives that are killing the web.

firtoz 3y ago

A few times I have googled a company name directly and the first few results were SEO snipes.

contravariant 3y ago

Though you'd think something like page-rank would not be attracted to some random pages that are only linked to from the same domain.

soperj 3y ago

#1 cause in the decline of Google maybe. https://search.marginalia.nu/ https://search.marginalia.nu/ seems to manage though, so maybe Google just doesn't care.

marginalia_nu 3y ago
It's mostly due to incentives. The most effective way to go after search engine spam is to aim for what the search engine spammers are after, which is mostly ad impressions. If you get rid of the ads, you get rid of the search engine spam. Of course, that would be directly hitting Google's bottom line, and is never going to happen[1] The other factor is of course that they are very big, and get directly targeted in a way I'm not. [1] http://infolab.stanford.edu/~backrub/google.html#a http://infolab.stanford.edu/~backrub/google.html#a

tensor 3y ago

To be fair, this is probably more Google not caring rather than any improvement in SEO gaming. Kagi doesn't suffer from the SEO spam like Google does, and if a small company can do it surely Google could if they wanted to.

10000truths 3y ago
Kagi can do it because of the fact that they're a small company, not despite it.
- tensor 3y ago
  I doubt it has anything to do with company size. Most likely it's due to what drives their products. In the case of Google, overall it's how many ads they sell, and if improving search quality doesn't lead to more ads, then there is little incentive to do it. For Kagi, they get revenue from customers paying for quality, so there is direct incentive to produce high quality search results.
  - leereeves 3y ago
    Kagi isn't a target for SEO tactics. If they became as popular as Google, SEO manipulators would find ways to improve their position on Kagi.

nostromo 3y ago

Stop blaming SEO and start blaming Google. Ultimately they're responsible for creating the incentives that are killing the web.